On last week's podcast I mentioned
this article that I found over on mashable. While it's no longer today's buzz topic, it's still very interesting to me, and I wanted to mention it again now that I have a minute.
Anyone who's seen me give my
DevCentral/iRules/iControl sermons already knows I'm a huge proponent of community. Heck, if you've ever met me at all, or even read my blog, you probably know that already. Community is amazing, and I love it. We all work together, and all benefit from the work each of our fellow community members does. What an amazing thing.
As such, I really love seeing communities in general, not just ours here at
DevCentral, succeed. I thought this was a great example of that.
Most of you are probably familiar with
Craigslist. Those that aren't, go take a look, it's good stuff. People can buy, sell, trade, chat, tell jokes, find/post jobs...whatever. It's a giant community message board, basically. It's a little more in the buy/sell area than we are, but it's still a community, driven by people adding content, posting to ask questions, look for things, etc. And it's awesome to see a community doing so well.
No adds. No fees for membership. Not even any usage fees, save for a
very small portion of the site in a
very few of the busiest regions. And still they're making a projected $100 million this year? That's impressive. More than just impressive, I think it's proof that free and open communities can and are successful.
I like what this portends for our community here at
DevCentral. Thanks to all of you amazing users that keep contributing and making this place better every day, I think we've got lots of amazing things to look forward to up ahead. I'm looking forward to the ride. ;)
#Colin